The only thing Apple fans love more than knowing the real deal details of a product release is the speculation and rumors that lead up to it. There were plenty of suspicions floating around before the event earlier today and while many were accurate, even more were completely off-base.

Retina Display
We called it. It made sense and Apple delivered (and we can’t wait to actually get our hands on one so we can admire it first-hand).

Processor
We knew that the third generation iPad would have a new processor –but which one? I think the expectation was a full quad-core implementation, but what Apple delivered will be effective: if you make the graphics render faster it makes all the difference. Credit goes to the Verge who seemed to have the closest guess with the call earlier last week that the new device would have a dual core chip with a more upgraded graphics engine.

Camera
We had a preview of the improved camera technology Apple is capable of with the iPhone 4S. With so much criticism after the launch of the iPad 2 given the poor quality of the back camera, it seemed an obvious win for this to be among the upgraded features and it was.

LTE
People asked for it, we figured it was logical, Apple delivered.

Siri
This was one of the more surprising exclusions today. What seemed like a no-brainer to us was a swing-and-a-miss on the new device, though we did get a fancy new microphone. If we’re placing bets I think it’s safe to assume Siri wasn’t ready to roll out to millions more devices but the upgraded hardware makes it possible for when it is.

Cosmetics
We knew it would be thicker. While I think we were expecting a slightly more tapered edge, nobody on our end predicted changes to the physical design any more drastic than the marginal differences we saw.

Pricing
As expected, pricing was spot-on to the existing costs.

iOS 5.1
Ready to go and already delivered! An upgraded operating system goes hand in hand with a product launch and was delivered just as we expected.

Home Button
A less talked about rumor and one we never believed was that the Home Button had been removed. Thankfully that one proved inaccurate.

Release Date
Following their established pattern, the new iPad is available March 16… just as we expected!

Overall our best guesses were pretty accurate, though it would have been nice to be surprised by a few of the more far-fetched rumors!